Faculty: Boarding school educators are unique in the American teaching community, resembling something like a cross between their private day peers and college professors. They have considerable freedom to shape their own curricula, but often receive research support from the schools for their own academic activities. An additional characteristic of boarding school faculty is that a sizable percentage are alumnae/i of the schools where they teach, adding another layer of commitment and cultural cohesion. As with teachers at private day schools, they are not unionized and usually are not formally tenured. Many agree to a multiyear commitment that includes dorm supervisory service. The partners and/or children of dorm faculty help create a family atmosphere for the students. The masters’ children often grow up to attend the school, provided their academics are sufficient. Many teachers serve their entire working lives at one school; some even bequeath their estates to their schools.
Traditionally, many faculty at boys’ schools were “triple threats”, serving as instructors, athletic coaches and dorm supervisors. At girls’ schools, academic, athletic, and residential staffs have typically been kept separate. At present, the tradition of the “triple threat” boarding school teacher is in decline.
Boarding school alumni have traditionally held positions of importance in the school power structure. Since boarding schools lack access to research and government grants, they are much more dependent on alumni support than are colleges and universities. This gives alumni a continued voice in school decisions. The admission prospects of alumni children, known as “legacies”, are thereby more enhanced than legacies at most colleges. Alumni tend to be very active in volunteer work, serving on fund raising and admissions committees and conducting applicant interviews and other pro bono work for their schools.
Students also have a voice in the school administration, despite their youth and brief tenure on campus. Student government maintains a dialogue with the head of school and the faculty about student concerns and serves as a bridge between adult officialdom and the student body. Student prefects help maintain order in the dorms and serve as peer counselors and observers. The schools, ever mindful that many students come from families with long standing school loyalty and that all students quickly become alumni, have adopted a long term viewpoint about students; that goofy fifteen-year-old may turn into an enthusiastic billionaire donor in the blink of an eye.
Parents once were an afterthought in boarding school culture. Poor transportation reduced parental contact to rare campus visits. Parent-student communication consisted of regular correspondence and the occasional “care package”. Today’s enhanced travel options and high tech communications have changed all of that. Parents are increasingly active in the life of the schools. Through parents’ organizations, many parents help as volunteer admissions interviewers, host regional receptions for families of applicants, assist in fund raising, and speak as school advocates. Long distance parents maintain frequent contact with their students as well as with teachers, dorm supervisors, tutors, and advisors. Streaming video services allow parents to follow sporting events and school assemblies. Local parents serve as surrogate parents for international and long distance domestic students; as volunteer activity hosts, providing snacks and drinks to sports teams; and as weekend or holiday hosts for students too far from home to travel on breaks. Many parents maintain their school ties long after their children have graduated.
THE BOARDING SCHOOL CAMPUS
Boarding school history plays out in the configuration of campuses. The old academies continue to border towns, often with public streets traversing the school grounds. The English style schools from the late 19th century maintain gated campuses, with academic and administrative buildings and student housing grouped around lawns bordered by trees. Schools dating from the modern era are arranged in a variety of patterns, according their individual histories. The athletic facilities and playing fields tend to sit further off, though some schools maintain their athletic fields at the center of their campuses.
The typical distribution of buildings on a boarding school campus means that students get a lot of exercise hiking from one building to another. Even those schools with compact campuses require considerable walking – to classes, to sports events, or to the nearby town. As mentioned previously, cars are forbidden to boarding students at most schools; and day students, who may drive to and from school with parental and school permission, must park their car upon arrival and walk the campus like everyone else. As a result, despite a demanding study schedule, boarding school students get outdoors regularly, in every kind of weather. A school closure due to severe weather is a decided rarity – most schools soldier on through rain, wind, and snow.
HOUSING
Boarding school students are typically housed in dormitories on campus. Each has on-site adult supervision – masters and advisors – plus a system of student assistants to maintain dorm rules and lead group activities. Dorm masters are faculty, usually a master and an assistant master, sometimes multiple assistant masters, who live on site in their own apartments within the dorm. Often the assistant doubles as an academic advisor, or an advisor is attached as a nonresident. In addition, schools often have other nonresident faculty attached to the dorms who serve as supervisors when the resident master is absent. Student assistants, often known as “prefects” or “proctors”, act as semiofficial supervisors, keeping order and offering guidance and advice to younger and new students. Prefects can also serve as informal confidants, as students sometimes feel more comfortable revealing secrets to other students rather than speaking to adult authority figures. Prefects are often given training on how to spot and respond to signs of student depression, emotional crisis, substance abuse, and other issues.
Most dorms are single sex, though some few schools have coed dorms, with girls on some floors and boys on others. Some schools have “vertically integrated” dorms, where students from all grade levels live together. The benefit to this is that the younger students learn from the older ones and the older students learn to mentor the younger ones. Others have dorms by grade level, with younger students grouped together, tenth and eleventh graders together, and seniors in their own residences. The benefits here are that students have different needs and interests at different ages, and the gradual lessening of school restrictions as the students mature is more easily managed when they are grouped by grade. Seniors only housing also can simulate a college experience, with no ‘lights out’ restrictions and other liberties.
A tiny cadre of schools opt for a house system based on the classic British boarding school house systems, such as at Eton and Rugby. The Lawrenceville School established a house system in 1880. Its near neighbor, the Hun School of Princeton (NJ) also has a house system, as does the Chaminade Preparatory School in St. Louis MO, the University School (non boarding) in Ohio and McCracken County High School, a public school in Kentucky. Like residential colleges at some universities (such as at Yale), boarding school houses are a subset of dorms in function, but with more group identity, history, and cohesion. Houses have their own histories, flags, colors, and traditional house rivalries. Dorms and houses both have student governments that help organize social and housekeeping events, decorate the common areas, and promote student spirit. Dorm and house government service is often a stepping stone to school wide student government positions.
Boarding school housing varies widely in size and quality but is often better than at colleges. As a rule the dorms are deliberately spare and basic. There are specific rules regarding lights out, noise levels, and quiet times. Student prefects on each floor maintain order, serve as informal counselors, and conduct room inspections. These inspections vary widely. Some schools require regular and frequent inspections, while at others inspections are an afterthought.
Space and light are always issues; usually there is little of either. The larger, brighter, quieter rooms go to ongoing students who get seniority in room selection. New students tend to be stuck with what’s left over. Once in a while a lucky newbie gets a great room when a longtime